A Second Book Of Operas by Henry Edward Krehbiel

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A Second Book of Operas: Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music [1917 ]

A Second Book of Operas by Henry Edward Krehbiel (World Cultural Heritage Library)

A Second Book of Operas

A Second Book of Operas

A Second Book of Operas: Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music (Classic Reprint)

A Book of Operas (Perfect Library)

A Second Book of Operas; Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music

A Second Book Of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots And Their Music

This etext was produced by Charles Franks, Robert Rowe and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Team.

A SECOND BOOK OF OPERAS

by Henry Edward Krehbiel

CONTENTS AND INDEX

CHAPTER I

BIBLICAL OPERAS

England and the Lord Chamberlain's censorship,et Gounod's "Reine de Saba,"The transmigrations of "Un Ballo in Maschera,"How composers revamp their music,et seq,--Handel and Keiser,Mozart and Bertati,Beethoven's readaptations of his own works,Rossini and his "Barber of Seville,"Verdi's "Nebuchadnezzar,"Rossini's "Moses,""Samson et Dalila,"Goldmark's "Konigin von Saba,"The Biblical operas of Rubinstein,Mehul's "Joseph,"Mendelssohn's "Elijah" in dramatic form,Oratorios and Lenten operas in Italy,Carissimi and Peri,Scarlatti's oratorios,Scenery and costumes in oratorios,The passage of the Red Sea and "Dal tuo stellato,"Nerves wrecked by beautiful music,"Peter the Hermit" and refractory mimic troops,"Mi manca la voce" and operatic amenities,Operatic prayers and ballets,Goethe's criticism of Rossini's "Mose,"

CHAPTER, II

BIBLE STORIES IN OPERA AND ORATORIO

Dr. Chrysander's theory of the undramatic nature of the Hebrew, hisliterature, and his life,Hebrew history and Greek mythology,Some parallels,Old Testament subjects: Adam and Eve,Cain and Abel,The "Kain" of Bulthanpt and d' Albert,"Tote Augen,"Noah and the Deluge,Abraham,The Exodus,Mehal's "Joseph,"Potiphar's wife and Richard Strauss,Raimondi's contrapuntal trilogy,Nebuchadnezzar,Judas Maccabseus,Jephtha and his Daughter,Judith,Esther,Athalia,

CHAPTER III

RUBINSTEIN AND HIS "GEISTLICHE OPER"

Anton Rubinstein and his ideals,An ambition to emulate Wagner,The Tower of Babel,"The composer's theories and strivings,et seq.--Dean Stanley,"Die Makkabaer,"Sulamith,"Christus,""Das verlorene Paradies,""Moses,"Action and stage directions,New Testament stories in opera,The Prodigal Son,Legendary material and the story of the Nativity,Christ dramas,Hebbel and Wagner,Parsifal,"

CHAPTER IV

"SAMSON ET DALILA"

The predecessors of M. Saint-Saens,Voltaire and Rameau,Duprez and Joachim Raff,History of Saint-Saens's opera,et seq.--Henri Regnault,First performances,As oratorio and opera in New York,An inquiry into the story of Samson,Samson and Herakles,The Hebrew hero in legend,A true type for tragedy,Mythological interpretations,Saint-Saens's opera described,et seq.--A choral prologue,Local color,The character of Dalila,et seq.--Milton on her wifehood and patriotism,"Printemps qui commence,""Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix,"Oriental ballet music,The catastrophe,

CHAPTER V

"DIE KONIGIN VON SABA"

Meritoriousness of the book of Goldmark's opera,Its slight connection with Biblical story,Contents of the dramaet seq.--Parallelism with Wagner's "Tannhauser,"First performance in New York,Oriental luxury in scenic outfit,Goldmark's music,

CHAPTER VI

"HERODIADE"

Modern opera and ancient courtesans,Transformed morals in Massenet's opera,A sea-change in England,Who and what was Salome?Plot of the opera,Scenic and musical adornments,Performances in New York,(footnote).

CHAPTER VII

"LAKME"

Story of the opera,et seq.--The "Bell Song,"Some unnecessary English ladies,First performance in New York,American history of the opera,Madame Patti,Miss Van ZandtMadame SembrichMadame Tetrazzini,Criticism of the drama,The music,

CHAPTER VIII

"PAGLIACCI"

The twin operas, "Cavalleria rusticana" and "Pagliacci,"Widespread influence of Mascagiii's opera,It inspires an ambition in Leoncavallo,History of his opera,A tragic ending taken from real life,et seq.--Controversy between Leoncavallo and Catulle Mendes,et seq.--"La Femme de Tabarin,""Tabarin" operas,The "Drama Nuevo" of Estebanez and Mr. Howells's "Yorick's Love,"What is a Pagliaccio?First performances of the opera in Milan and New York,The prologue,et seq.--The opera described,et seq.--Bagpipes and vesper bells,Harlequin's serenade,The Minuet,The Gavotte,Plaudite, amici, la commedia finita est!"Philip Hale on who should speak the final words,

CHAPTER IX

"CAVALLERIA RUSTICASTA"

How Mascagni's opera impressed the author when it was new,Attic tragedy and Attic decorum,The loathsome operatic brood which it spawned,Not matched by the composer or his imitators since,Mascagni's account of how it came to be written,et seq.--Verga's story,et seq.--Story and libretto compared,The Siciliano,The Easter hymn,Analysis of the opera,et seq.--The prelude,Lola's stornello,The intermezzo,"They have killed Neighbor Turiddu!"

The song of the sun,Allegory and drama,Story of the opera,et seq.--The music,et seq.--Turbid orchestration,Local color,Borrowings from Meyerbeer,

CHAPTER XII

"MADAMA BUTTERFLY"

The opera's ancestry,Loti's "Madame Chrysantheme,"John Luther Long's story,David Belasco's play,How the failure of "Naughty Anthony" suggested "Madame Butterfly,"William Furst and his music,Success of Mr. Belasco's play in New York,The success repeated in London,Brought to the attention of Signor Puccini,Ricordi and Co. and their librettists,"Madama Butterfly" fails in Milan,The first casts in Milan, Brescia, and New York,(footnote)Incidents of the fiasco,Rossini and Puccini,The opera revised,Interruption of the vigil, Story of the opera,et seq.--The hiring of wives in Japan,Experiences of Pierre Loti,Geishas and mousmes,A changed denouement,Messager's opera, "Madame Chrysantheme,"The end of Loti's romance,Japanese melodies in the score,Puccini's method and Wagner's,"The Star-Spangled Banner,"A tune from "The Mikado,"Some of the themes of Puccini and William Furst,

CHAPTEE XIII

"DER ROSENKAVALIER"

The opera's predecessors, "Guntram," "Feuersnot," "Salome,"Oscar Wilde makes a mistaken appeal to France,His necrophilism welcomed by Richard Strauss and Berlin,Conried's efforts to produce "Salome" at the Metropolitan OperaBlouse suppressed,Hammerstein produces the work,"Elektra,"Hugo von HofEmannsthal and Beaumarchais,Strauss and Mozart,Mozart's themes and Strauss's waltzes,Dancing in Vienna at the time of Maria Theresa,First performance of the opera at New York,"Der Rosenkavalier" and "Le Nozze di Figaro,"Criticism of the play and its music,et seq.--Use of a melodic phrase from "Die Zauberflote,"The language of the libretto,The music,Cast of the first American performance,(footnote)

CHAPTER XIV

"KONIGSKINDER"

Story of the play,et seq.--First production of Hummerdinck's opera and cast,Earlier performance of the work as a melodrama,Author and composer,Opera and melodrama in Germany,Wagnerian symbolism and music,"Die Meistersinger" recalled,Hero and Leander,Humperdinck's music,

CHAPTER XV

"BORIS GODOUNOFF"

First performance of Moussorgsky's opera in New York,Participation of the chorus in the tragedy,Imported French enthusiasm,Vocal melody, textual accents and rhythms,Slavicism expressed in an Italian translation,Moussorgsky and Debussy,Political reasons for French enthusiasm,Rimsky-Korsakoff's revision of the score,Russian operas in America,"Nero," "Pique Dame," "Eugene Onegin,"Verstoffeky's "Askold's Tomb,"The nationalism of "Boris Godounoff,"The Kolydda song "Slava" and Beethoven,Lack of the feminine element in the drama,The opera's lack of coherency,Cast of the first American performance,

The composer's operas first sung in their original tongue in America,First performances of "Le Donne Curiose," "Il Segreto di Susanna," "IGiojelli della Madonna," "L'Amore Medico,"Story and music of "Le Donne Curiose,"Methods and apparatus of Mozart's day,Wolf-Ferrari's Teutonism,Goldoni paraphrased,Nicolai and Verdi,The German version of "Donne Curiose,"Musical motivi in the opera,Rameau's "La Poule,"Cast of the first performance in New York,(footnote)--Naples and opera,"I Giojelli della Madonna,"et seq.--Erlanger's "Aphrodite,"Neapolitan folksongs,Wolf-Ferrari's individuality,His "Vita Nuova,"First performance in America of I Giojelli,"

CHAPTER I

BIBLICAL OPERAS

Whether or not the English owe a grudge to their Lord Chamberlainfor depriving them of the pleasure of seeing operas based onBiblical stories I do not know. If they do, the grudge cannot be adeep one, for it is a long time since Biblical operas were invogue, and in the case of the very few survivals it has been easyto solve the difficulty and salve the conscience of the publiccensor by the simple device of changing the names of the charactersand the scene of action if the works are to be presented on thestage, or omitting scenery, costumes and action and performing themas oratorios. In either case, whenever this has been done, however,it has been the habit of critics to make merry at the expense of myLord Chamberlain and the puritanicalness of the popular spirit ofwhich he is supposed to be the official embodiment, and todiscourse lugubriously and mayhap profoundly on the perversion ofcomposers' purposes and the loss of things essential to the lyricdrama.

It may be heretical to say so, but is it not possible that LordChamberlain and Critic have both taken too serious a view of thematter? There is a vast amount of admirable material in the Bible(historical, legendary or mythical, as one happens to regard it),which would not necessarily be degraded by dramatic treatment, andwhich might be made entertaining as well as edifying, as it hasbeen made in the past, by stage representation. Reverence for thismaterial is neither inculcated nor preserved by shifting the sceneand throwing a veil over names too transparent to effect adisguise. Moreover, when this is done, there is always danger thatthe process may involve a sacrifice of the respect to which a workof art is entitled on its merits as such. Gounod, in collaborationwith Barbier and Carre, wrote an opera entitled "La Reine de Saba."The plot had nothing to do with the Bible beyond the name ofSheba's Queen and King Solomon. Mr. Farnie, who used to make comicoperetta books in London, adapted the French libretto forperformance in English and called the opera "Irene." What a titlefor a grand opera! Why not "Blanche" or "Arabella"? No doubt such athought flitted through many a careless mind unconscious that anIrene was a Byzantine Empress of the eighth century, who, by herdevotion to its tenets, won beatification after death from theGreek Church. The opera failed on the Continent as well as inLondon, but if it had not been given a comic operetta flavor by itstitle and association with the name of the excellent Mr. Farnie,would the change in supposed time, place and people have harmed it?

A few years ago I read (with amusement, of course) of themetamorphosis to which Massenet's "Herodiade" was subjected so thatit might masquerade for a brief space on the London stage; but whenI saw the opera in New York "in the original package" (to speakcommercially), I could well believe that the music sounded the samein London, though John the Baptist sang under an alias and thepainted scenes were supposed to delineate Ethiopia instead ofPalestine.

There is a good deal of nonsensical affectation in the talk aboutthe intimate association in the minds of composers of music, text,incident, and original purpose. "Un Ballo in Maschera," as we seeit most often nowadays, plays in Nomansland; but I fancy that itsmusic would sound pretty much the same if the theatre of actionwere transplanted back to Sweden, whence it came originally, orleft in Naples, whither it emigrated, or in Boston, to which highlyinappropriate place it was banished to oblige the Neapolitancensor. So long as composers have the habit of plucking feathersout of their dead birds to make wings for their new, we are likelyto remain in happy and contented ignorance of mesalliances betweenmusic and score, until they are pointed out by too curious criticsor confessed by the author. What is present habit was former customto which no kind or degree of stigma attached. Bach did it; Handeldid it; nor was either of these worthies always scrupulous indistinguishing between meum and tuum when it came to appropriatingexisting thematic material. In their day the merit of individualityand the right of property lay more in the manner in which ideaswere presented than in the ideas themselves.

In 1886 I spent a delightful day with Dr. Chrysander at his home inBergedorf, near Hamburg, and he told me the story of how on oneoccasion, when Keiser was incapacitated by the vice to which he washabitually prone, Handel, who sat in his orchestra, was asked byhim to write the necessary opera. Handel complied, and his successwas too great to leave Keiser's mind in peace. So he reset thebook. Before Keiser's setting was ready for production Handel hadgone to Italy. Hearing of Keiser's act, he secured a copy of thenew setting from a member of the orchestra and sent back to Hamburga composition based on Keiser's melodies "to show how such themesought to be treated." Dr. Chrysander, also, when he gave me a copyof Bertati's "Don Giovanni" libretto, for which Gazzaniga composedthe music, told me that Mozart had been only a little less freethan the poet in appropriating ideas from the older work.

One of the best pieces in the final scene of "Fidelio" was takenfrom a cantata on the death of the emperor of Austria, composed byBeethoven before he left Bonn. The melody originally conceived forthe last movement of the Symphony in D minor was developed into thefinale of one of the last string quartets. In fact the instances inwhich composers have put their pieces to widely divergent purposesare innumerable and sometimes amusing, in view of the fantasticbelief that they are guided by plenary inspiration. The overturewhich Rossini wrote for his "Barber of Seville" was lost soon afterthe first production of the opera. The composer did not take thetrouble to write another, but appropriated one which had served itspurpose in an earlier work. Persons ignorant of that fact, but withlively imaginations, as I have said in one of my books, ["A Book ofOperas," p. 9] have rhapsodized on its appositeness, and professedto hear in it the whispered plottings of the lovers and the merryraillery of Rosina contrasted with the futile ragings of her groutyguardian; but when Rossini composed this piece of music its missionwas to introduce an adventure of the Emperor Aurelianus in Palmyrain the third century of the Christian era. Having served thatpurpose it became the prelude to another opera which dealt withQueen Elizabeth of England, a monarch who reigned some twelvehundred years after Aurelianus. Again, before the melody now knownas that of Almaviva's cavatina had burst into the efflorescencewhich now distinguishes it, it came as a chorus from the mouths ofCyrus and his Persians in ancient Babylon.

When Mr. Lumley desired to produce Verdi's "Nabucodonosor" (called"Nabucco" for short) in London in 1846 he deferred to Englishtradition and brought out the opera as "Nino, Re d'Assyria." Iconfess that I cannot conceive how changing a king of Babylon to aking of Assyria could possibly have brought about a change one wayor the other in the effectiveness of Verdi's Italian music, but Mr.Lumley professed to have found in the transformation reason for theEnglish failure. At any rate, he commented, in his "Reminiscencesof the Opera," "That the opera thus lost much of its originalcharacter, especially in the scene where the captive Israelitesbecame very uninteresting Babylonians, and was thereby shorn of oneelement of success present on the Continent, is undeniable."

There is another case even more to the purpose of this presentdiscussion. In 1818 Rossini produced his opera "Mose in Egitto" inNaples. The strength of the work lay in its choruses; yet two ofthem were borrowed from the composer's "Armida." In 1822 Bochsaperformed it as an oratorio at Covent Garden, but, says John Ebersin his "Seven Years of the King's Theatre," published in 1828, "theaudience accustomed to the weighty metal and pearls of price ofHandel's compositions found the 'Moses' as dust in the balance incomparison." "The oratorio having failed as completely as erst didPharaoh's host," Ebers continues, "the ashes of 'Mose in Egitto'revived in the form of an opera entitled 'Pietro l'Eremita.' Moseswas transformed into Peter. In this form the opera was assuccessful as it had been unfortunate as an oratorio.... 'Mose inEgitto' was condemned as cold, dull, and heavy. 'Pietro l'Eremita,'Lord Sefton, one of the most competent judges of the day,pronounced to be the most effective opera produced within hisrecollection; and the public confirmed the justice of the remark,for no opera during my management had such unequivocal success."[Footnote: "Seven Years of the King's Theatre," by John Ebers, pp.157, 158.] This was not the end of the opera's vicissitudes, tosome of which I shall recur presently; let this suffice now:

Rossini rewrote it in 1827, adding some new music for the AcademieRoyal in Paris, and called it "Moise"; when it was revived for theCovent Garden oratorios, London, in 1833, it was not only performedwith scenery and dresses, but recruited with music from Handel'soratorio and renamed "The Israelites in Egypt; or the Passage ofthe Red Sea"; when the French "Moise" reached the Royal ItalianOpera, Covent Garden, in April, 1850, it had still another name,"Zora," though Chorley does not mention the fact in his "ThirtyYears' Musical Recollections," probably because the failure of theopera which he loved grieved him too deeply. For a long time"Moses" occupied a prominent place among oratorios. The Handel andHaydn Society of Boston adopted it in 1845, and between then and1878 performed it forty-five times.

In all the years of my intimate association with the lyric drama(considerably more than the number of which Mr. Chorley has left usa record) I have seen but one opera in which the plot adheres tothe Biblical story indicated by its title. That opera is Saint-Saens's "Samson et Dalila." I have seen others whose titles anddramatis personae suggested narratives found in Holy Writ, but innearly all these cases it would be a profanation of the Book tocall them Biblical operas. Those which come to mind are Goldmark's"Konigin von Saba," Massenet's "Herodiade" and Richard Strauss's"Salome." I have heard, in whole or part, but not seen, three ofthe works which Rubinstein would fain have us believe are operas,but which are not--"Das verlorene Paradies," "Der Thurmbau zuBabel" and "Moses"; and I have a study acquaintance with the booksand scores of his "Maccabaer," which is an opera; his "Sulamith,"which tries to be one, and his "Christus," which marks theculmination of the vainest effort that a contemporary composer madeto parallel Wagner's achievement on a different line. There areother works which are sufficiently known to me through librarycommunion or concert-room contact to enable me to claim enoughacquaintanceship to justify converse about them and which mustperforce occupy attention in this study. Chiefest and noblest ofthese are Rossini's "Moses" and Mehul's "Joseph." Finally, thereare a few with which I have only a passing or speakingacquaintance; whose faces I can recognize, fragments of whosespeech I know, and whose repute is such that I can contrive toguess at their hearts--such as Verdi's "Nabucodonosor" and Gounod's"Reine de Saba."

Rossini's "Moses" was the last of the Italian operas (the last by asignificant composer, at least) which used to be composed to easethe Lenten conscience in pleasure-loving Italy. Though written tobe played with the adjuncts of scenery and costumes, it has less ofaction than might easily be infused into a performance ofMendelssohn's "Elijah," and the epical element which finds itsexposition in the choruses is far greater than that in any opera ofits time with which I am acquainted. In both its aspects, asoratorio and as opera, it harks back to a time when the two formswere essentially the same save in respect of subject matter. It isa convenient working hypothesis to take the classic tragedy ofHellas as the progenitor of the opera. It can also be taken as theprototype of the Festival of the Ass, which was celebrated as longago as the twelfth century in France; of the miracle plays whichwere performed in England at the same time; the Commediaspiritiuale of thirteenth-century Italy and the GeistlicheSchauspiele of fourteenth-century Germany. These mummeries withtheir admixture of church song, pointed the way as media ofedification to the dramatic representations of Biblical sceneswhich Saint Philip Neri used to attract audiences to hear hissermons in the Church of St. Mary in Vallicella, in Rome, and thesacred musical dramas came to be called oratorios. While thecamerata were seeking to revive the classic drama in Florence,Carissimi was experimenting with sacred material in Rome, and hisepoch-making allegory, "La Rappresentazione dell' Anima e delCorpo," was brought out, almost simultaneously with Peri's"Euridice," in 1600. Putting off the fetters of plainsong, musicbecame beautiful for its own sake, and as an agent of dramaticexpression. His excursions into Biblical story were followed for acentury or more by the authors of sacra azione, written to take theplace of secular operas in Lent. The stories of Jephtha and hisdaughter, Hezekiah, Belshazzar, Abraham and Isaac, Jonah, Job, theJudgment of Solomon, and the Last Judgment became the staple ofopera composers in Italy and Germany for more than a century.Alessandro Scarlatti, whose name looms large in the history ofopera, also composed oratorios; and Mr. E. J. Dent, his biographer,has pointed out that "except that the operas are in three acts andthe oratorios in two, the only difference is in the absence ofprofessedly comic characters and of the formal statement in whichthe author protests that the words fata, dio, dieta, etc., are onlyscherzi poetici and imply nothing contrary to the Catholic faith."Zeno and Metastasio wrote texts for sacred operas as well asprofane, with Tobias, Absalom, Joseph, David, Daniel, and Sisera assubjects.

Presently I shall attempt a discussion of the gigantic attempt madeby Rubinstein to enrich the stage with an art-form to which he gavea distinctive name, but which was little else than, an inflatedtype of the old sacra azione, employing the larger apparatus whichmodern invention and enterprise have placed at the command of theplaywright, stage manager, and composer. I am compelled to see inhis project chiefly a jealous ambition to rival the great andtriumphant accomplishment of Richard Wagner, but it is possiblethat he had a prescient eye on a coming time. The desire to combinepictures with oratorio has survived the practice which prevaileddown to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Handel used scenesand costumes when he produced his "Esther," as well as his "Acisand Galatea," in London. Dittersdorf has left for us a descriptionof the stage decorations prepared for his oratorios when they wereperformed in the palace of the Bishop of Groswardein. Of late yearsthere have been a number of theatrical representations ofMendelssohn's "Elijah." I have witnessed as well as heard aperformance of "Acis and Galatea" and been entertained with thespectacle of Polyphemus crushing the head of presumptuous Acis witha stave like another Fafner while singing "Fly, thou massy ruin,fly" to the bludgeon which was playing understudy for the fatalrock.

This diverting incident brings me to a consideration of one of thedifficulties which stand in the way of effective stage picturescombined with action in the case of some of the most admired of thesubjects for oratorios or sacred opera. It was not the LordChamberlain who stood in the way of Saint-Saens's "Samson etDalila" in the United States for many years, but the worldly wisdomof opera managers who shrank from attempting to stage the spectacleof the falling Temple of Dagon, and found in the work itself aplentiful lack of that dramatic movement which is to-day consideredmore essential to success than beautiful and inspiriting music."Samson et Dalila" was well known in its concert form when themanagement of the Metropolitan Opera House first attempted tointroduce it as an opera. It had a single performance in the seasonof 1894-1895 and then sought seclusion from the stage lamps fortwenty years. It was, perhaps, fortunate for the work that noattempt was made to repeat it, for, though well sung andsatisfactorily acted, the toppling of the pillars of the temple,discreetly supported by too visible wires, at the conclusion made astronger appeal to the popular sense of the ridiculous than evenSaint-Saens's music could withstand. It is easy to inveigh againstthe notion frivolous fribbles and trumpery trappings receive moreattention than the fine music which ought to be recognized as thesoul of the work, the vital spark which irradiates aninconsequential material body; but human nature has not yet freeditself sufficiently from gross clogs to attain so ideal anattitude.

It is to a danger similar to that which threatened the original NewYork "Samson" that the world owes the most popular melody inRossini's "Mose." The story is old and familiar to the students ofoperatic history, but will bear retelling. The plague of darknessopens the opera, the passage of the Red Sea concludes it. Rossini'sstage manager had no difficulty with the former, which demandednothing more than the lowering of the stage lights. But he couldevolve no device which could save the final miracle from laughter.A hilarious ending to so solemn a work disturbed the management andthe librettist, Totola, who, just before a projected revival inNaples, a year or two after the first production, came to thecomposer with a project for saving the third act. Rossini was inbed, as usual, and the poet showed him the text of the prayer, "Daltuo stellato," which he said he had written in an hour. "I will getup and write the music," said Rossini; "you shall have it in aquarter of an hour." And he kept his word, whether literally or notin respect of time does not matter. When the opera was againperformed it contained the chorus with its melody which providedPaganini with material for one of his sensational performances onthe G-string.

[figure: a musical score excerpt]

Carpani tells the story and describes the effect upon the audiencewhich heard it for the first time. Laughter was just beginning inthe pit when the public was surprised to note that Moses was aboutto sing. The people stopped laughing and prepared to listen. Theywere awed by the beauty of the minor strain which was echoed byAaron and then by the chorus of Israelites. The host marched acrossthe mimic sea and fell on its knees, and the music burst forthagain, but now in the major mode. And now the audience joined inthe jubilation. The people in the boxes, says Carpani, stood up;they leaned over the railings; applauded; they shouted: "Bello!bello! O che bello!" Carpani adds: "I am almost in tears when Ithink of this prayer." An impressionable folk, those Italians ofless than a century ago. "Among other things that can be said inpraise of our hero," remarked a physician to Carpani, amidst theenthusiasm caused by the revamped opera, "do not forget that he isan assassin. I can cite to you more than forty attacks of nervousfever or violent convulsions on the part of young women, fond toexcess of music, which have no other origin than the prayer of theHebrews in the third act with its superb change of key!"

Thus music saved the scene in Naples. When the opera was rewrittenfor London and made to tell a story about Peter the Hermit, thecorresponding scene had to be elided after the first performance.Ebers tells the story: "A body of troops was supposed to pass overa bridge which, breaking, was to precipitate them into the water.The troops being made of basketwork and pulled over the bridge byropes, unfortunately became refractory on their passage, and verysensibly refused, when the bridge was about to give way, to proceedany further; consequently when the downfall of the arches tookplace the basket men remained very quietly on that part of thebridge which was left standing, and instead of being consigned tothe waves had nearly been set on fire. The audience, not giving thetroops due credit for their prudence, found no little fault withtheir compliance with the law of self-preservation. In thefollowing representations of the opera the bridge and basket menwhich, en passant (or en restant rather), had cost fifty pounds,were omitted." [Footnote: Op. cit., p. 160] When "Moise" wasprepared in Paris 45,000 francs were sunk in the Red Sea.

I shall recur in a moment to the famous preghiera but, havingEbers' book before me, I see an anecdote so delightfullyillustrative of the proverbial spirit of the lyric theatre that Icannot resist the temptation to repeat it. In the revised "Moses"made for Paris there occurs a quartet beginning "Mi manca la voce"("I lack voice") which Chorley describes as "a delicious round."Camporese had to utter the words first and no sooner had she doneso than Ronzi di Begnis, in a whisper, loud enough to be heard byher companion, made the comment "E vero!" ("True!")--"a remark,"says Mr. Ebers, "which produced a retort courteous somewhat morethan verging on the limit of decorum, though not proceeding to theextremity asserted by rumor, which would have been as inconsistentwith propriety as with the habitual dignity and self-possession ofCamporese's demeanor."

Somebody, I cannot recall who, has said that the success of "Daltuo stellato" set the fashion of introducing prayers into operas.Whether this be true or not, it is a fact that a prayer occurs infour of the operas which Rossini composed for the Paris Grand Operaand that the formula is become so common that it may be set down asan operatic convention, a convention, moreover, which even theiconoclast Wagner left undisturbed. One might think that thepropriety of prayer in a religious drama would have been enforcedupon the mind of a classicist like Goethe by his admiration for theantique, but it was the fact that Rossini's opera showed theIsraelites upon their knees in supplication to God that set thegreat German poet against "Mose." In a conversation recorded byEckermann as taking place in 1828, we hear him uttering hisobjection to the work: "I do not understand how you can separateand enjoy separately the subject and the music. You pretend herethat the subject is worthless, but you are consoled for it by afeast of excellent music. I wonder that your nature is thusorganized that your ear can listen to charming sounds while yoursight, the most perfect of your senses, is tormented by absurdobjects. You will not deny that your 'Moses' is in effect veryabsurd. The curtain is raised and people are praying. This is allwrong. The Bible says that when you pray you should go into yourchamber and close the door. Therefore, there should be no prayingin the theatre. As for me, I should have arranged a whollydifferent 'Moses.' At first I should have shown the children ofIsrael bowed down by countless odious burdens and suffering fromthe tyranny of the Egyptian rulers. Then you would have appreciatedmore easily what Moses deserved from his race, which he haddelivered from a shameful oppression." "Then," says Mr. PhilipHale, who directed my attention to this interesting passage,"Goethe went on to reconstruct the whole opera. He introduced, forinstance, a dance of the Egyptians after the plague of darkness wasdispelled."

May not one criticise Goethe? If he so greatly reverenced prayer,according to its institution under the New Dispensation, why did henot show regard also for the Old and respect the verities ofhistory sufficiently to reserve his ballet till after the passageof the Red Sea, when Moses celebrated the miracle with a song and"Miriam, the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in herhand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and withdances"?

CHAPTER II

BIBLE STORIES IN OPERA AND ORATORIO

It was the fond belief of Dr. Chrysander, born of his deep devotionto Handel, in whose works he lived aud moved and had his being,that the heroic histories of the Jews offered no fit material fordramatic representation. In his view the Jews never createddramatic poetry, partly because of the Mosaic prohibition againstplastic delineation of their Deity, partly because the tragicelement, which was so potent an influence in the development of theGreek drama, was wanting in their heroes. The theory that the Songof Songs, that canticle of canticles of love, was a pastoral playhad no lodgment in his mind; the poem seemed less dramatic to himthan the Book of Job. The former sprang from the idyllic life ofthe northern tribes and reflected that life; the latter, much moreprofound in conception, proved by its form that the road to a realstage-play was insurmountably barred to the Hebrew poet. Whatpoetic field was open to him then? Only the hymning of a Deity,invisible, omnipresent and omnipotent, the swelling call to combatfor the glory of God against an inimical world, and the celebrationof an ideal consisting in a peaceful, happy existence in the Landof Promise under God's protecting care. This God presented Himselfoccasionally as a militant, all-powerful warrior, but only inmoments when the fortunes of His people were critically at issue.These moments, however, were exceptional and few; as a rule, Godmanifested Himself in prophecy, through words and music. The lawswere promulgated in song; so were the prophetic promises,denunciations, and calls to repentance; and there grew up amagnificent liturgical service in the temple.

Hebrew poetry, epic and lyrical, was thus antagonistic to thedrama. So, also, Dr. Chrysander contends, was the Hebrew himself.Not only had he no predilection for plastic creation, his life wasnot dramatic in the sense illustrated in Greek tragedy. He lived acare-free, sensuous existence, and either fell under righteouscondemnation for his transgressions or walked in the way prescribedof the Lord and found rest at last in Abraham's bosom. His life wassimple; so were his strivings, his longings, his hopes. Yet when itcame to the defence or celebration of his spiritual possessions hissoul was filled with such a spirit of heroic daring, such a glow ofenthusiasm, as are not to be paralleled among another of thepeoples of antiquity. He thus became a fit subject for only one ofthe arts--music; in this art for only one of its spheres, thesublime, the most appropriate and efficient vehicle of which is theoratorio.

One part of this argument seems to me irrelevant; the other notfirmly founded in fact. It does not follow that because the Greekconscience evolved the conceptions of rebellious pride and punitiveFate while the Hebrew conscience did not, therefore the Greeks werethe predestined creators of the art-form out of which grew theopera and the Hebrews of the form which grew into the oratorio.Neither is it true that because a people are not disposed towarddramatic creation themselves they can not, or may not, be the causeof dramatic creativeness in others. Dr. Chrysander's argument, madein a lecture at the Johanneum in Hamburg in 1896, preceded ananalysis of Handel's Biblical oratorios in their relation to Hebrewhistory, and his exposition of that history as he unfolded itchronologically from the Exodus down to the Maccabaean period wasin itself sufficient to furnish many more fit operatic plots thanhave yet been written. Nor are there lacking in these stories someof the elements of Greek legend and mythology which were themainsprings of the tragedies of Athens. The parallels are striking:Jephtha's daughter and Iphigenia; Samson and his slavery and theservitude of Hercules and Perseus; the fate of Ajax and otherheroes made mad by pride, and the lycanthropy of Nebuchadnezzar, ofwhose vanity Dr. Hanslick once reminded Wagner, warning him againstthe fate of the Babylonian king who became like unto an ox, "ategrass and was composed by Verdi"; think reverently of Alcestis andthe Christian doctrine of atonement!

The writers of the first Biblical operas sought their subjects asfar back in history, or legend, as the written page permitted.Theile composed an "Adam and Eve" in 1678; but our first parentsnever became popular on the serious stage. Perhaps the fearful soulof the theatrical costumer was frightened and perplexed by theproblem which the subject put up to him. Haydn introduced them intohis oratorio "The Creation," but, as the custom goes now, the thirdpart of the work, in which they appear, is frequently, if notgenerally omitted in performance. Adam, to judge by the record inHoly Writ, made an uneventful end: "And all the days that Adamlived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died"; but thisdid not prevent Lesueur from writing an opera on his death tenyears after Haydn's oratorio had its first performance. He calledit "La Mort d'Adam et son Apotheose," and it involved him in adisastrous quarrel with the directors of the Conservatoire and theAcademie. Pursuing the search chronologically, the librettists nextcame upon Cain and Abel, who offered a more fruitful subject fordramatic and musical invention. We know very little about thesacred operas whieh shared the list with works based on classicalfables and Roman history in the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies; inasmuch, however, as they were an outgrowth of thepious plays of the Middle Ages and designed for edifyingconsumption in Lent, it is likely that they adhered in their plotspretty close to the Biblical accounts. I doubt if the sentimentalelement which was in vogue when Rossini wrote "Mose in Egitto"played much of a role in such an opera as Johann Philipp Fortsch's"Kain und Abel; oder der verzweifelnde Brudermorder," which wasperformed in Hamburg in 1689, or even in "Abel's Tod," which camealong in 1771. The first fratricidal murder seems to have had anearly and an enduring fascination for dramatic poets and composers.Metastasio's "La Morte d'Abele," set by both Caldara and Leo in1732, remained a stalking-horse for composers down to Morlacchi in1820. One of the latest of Biblical operas is the "Kain" ofHeinrich Bulthaupt and Eugen d'Albert. This opera and a later lyricdrama by the same composer, "Tote Augen" (under which title acasual reader would never suspect that a Biblical subject waslurking), call for a little attention because of their indicationof a possible drift which future dramatists may follow in treatingsacred story.

Wicked envy and jealousy were not sufficient motives in the eyes ofBulthaupt and d'Albert for the first fratricide; there must be aninfusion of psychology and modern philosophy. Abel is an optimist,an idealist, a contented dreamer, joying in the loveliness of lifeand nature; Cain, a pessimist, a morose brooder, for whom lifecontained no beautiful illusions. He gets up from his couch in thenight to question the right of God to create man for suffering. Heis answered by Lucifer, who proclaims himself the benefactor of thefamily in having rescued them from the slothful existence of Edenand given them a Redeemer. The devil discourses on the delightfulministrations of that Redeemer, whose name is Death. In the morningAbel arises and as he offers his sacrifice he hymns the sacredmystery of life and turns a deaf ear to the new-found gospel ofhis brother. An inspiring thought comes to Cain; by killing Abeland destroying himself he will save future generations from thesufferings to which they are doomed. With this benevolent purposein mind he commits the murder. The blow has scarcely been struckbefore a multitude of spirit-voices call his name and God thundersthe question: "Where is Abel, thy brother?" Adam comes from hiscave and looks upon the scene with horror. Now Cain realizes thathis work is less than half done: he is himself still alive and sois his son Enoch. He rushes forward to kill his child, but themother throws herself between, and Cain discovers that he is notstrong-willed enough to carry out his design. God's curse condemnshim to eternal unrest, and while the elements rage around him Caingoes forth into the mountain wilderness.

Herr Bulthaupt did not permit chronology to stand in the way of hisaction, but it can at least be said for him that he did not profanethe Book as Herr Ewers, Mr. d'Albert's latest collaborator, didwhen he turned a story of Christ's miraculous healing of a blindwoman into a sensational melodrama. In the precious opera, "ToteAugen" ("Dead Eyes"), brought out in March, 1916, in Dresden,Myrocle, the blind woman, is the wife of Arcesius, a Romanambassador in Jerusalem. Never having seen him, Myrocle believesher husband to be a paragon of beauty, but he is, in fact, hideousof features, crook-backed, and lame; deformed in mind and heart,too, for he has concealed the truth from her. Christ is enteringJerusalem, and Mary of Magdala leads Myrocle to him, having heardof the miracles which he performs, and he opens the woman's eyes atthe moment that the multitude is shouting its hosannahs. The firstman who fills the vision of Myrocle is Galba, handsome, noble,chivalrous, who had renounced the love he bore her because she wasthe wife of his friend. In Galba the woman believes she sees thehusband whom in her fond imagination she had fitted out with thecharms of mind and person which his friend possesses. She throwsherself into his arms, and he does not repel her mistaken embraces;but the misshapen villain throws himself upon the pair andstrangles his friend to death. A slave enlightens the mystifiedwoman; the murderer, not the dead hero at his feet, is her husband.Singularly enough, she does not turn from him with hatred andloathing, but looks upon him with a great pity. Then she turns hereyes upon the sun, which Christ had said should not set until shehad cursed him, and gazes into its searing glow until her sight isagain dead. Moral: it is sinful to love the loveliness of outwardthings; from the soul must come salvation. As if she had neverlearned the truth, she returns to her wifely love for Arcesius. Thestory is as false to nature as it is sacrilegious; its trumperytheatricalism is as great a hindrance to a possible return ofBiblical opera as the disgusting celebration of necrophilism inRichard Strauss's "Salome."

In our historical excursion we are still among the patriarchs, andthe whole earth is of one language and of one speech. Noah, theark, and the deluge seem now too prodigious to be essayed by operamakers, but, apparently, they did not awe the Englishman EdwardEccleston (or Eggleston), who is said to have produced an opera,"Noah's Flood, or the Destruction of the World," in London in 1679,nor Seyfried, whose "Libera me" was sung at Beethoven's funeral,and who, besides Biblical operas entitled "Saul," "Abraham," "TheMaccabees," and "The Israelites in the Desert," brought out a"Noah" in Vienna in 1818. Halevy left an unfinished opera, "Noe,"which Bizet, who was his son-in-law, completed. Of oratoriosdealing with the deluge I do not wish to speak further than toexpress my admiration for the manner in which Saint-Saens openedthe musical floodgates in "Le Deluge."

On the plain in the Land of Shinar the families of the sons of Noahbuilded them a city and a tower whose top they arrogantly hopedmight reach unto heaven. But the tower fell, the tongues of thepeople were confounded, and the people were scattered abroad on theface of the earth. Rubinstein attempted to give dramaticrepresentation to the tremendous incident, and to his effort andvain dream I shall revert in the next chapter of this book. Now Imust on with the history of the patriarchs. The story of Abrahamand his attempted offering of Isaac has been much used as oratoriomaterial, and Joseph Elsner, Chopin's teacher, brought out a Polishopera, "Ofiara Abrama," at Warsaw in 1827.

A significant milestone in the history of the Hebrews as well asBiblical operas has now been reached. The sojourn of the Jews inEgypt and their final departure under the guidance of Moses havealready occupied considerable attention in this study. Theyprovided material for the two operas which seem to me the noblestof their kind--Mehul's "Joseph" and Rossini's "Mose in Egitto."Mehul's opera, more than a decade older than Rossini's, still holdsa place on the stages of France and Germany, and this despite thefact that it foregoes two factors which are popularly supposed tobe essential to operatic success--a love episode and woman'spresence and participation in the action. The opera, which is inthree acts, was brought forward at the Theatre Feydeau in Paris onFebruary 17, 1807. It owed its origin to a Biblical tragedyentitled "Omasis," by Baour Lormian. The subject--the sale ofJoseph by his brothers into Egyptian slavery, his rise to power,his forgiveness of the wrong attempted against him, and hisprovision of a home for the people of Israel in the land of Goshen--had long been popular with composers of oratorios. The list ofthese works begins with Caldara's "Giuseppe" in 1722. Metastasio's"Giuseppe riconosciuto" was set by half a dozen composers between1733 and 1788. Handel wrote his English oratorio in 1743; G. A.Macfarren's was performed at the Leeds festival of 1877. Lormianthought it necessary to introduce a love episode into his tragedy,but Alexander Duval, who wrote the book for Mehul's opera, was ofthe opinion that the diversion only enfeebled the beautiful ifaustere picture of patriarchal domestic life delineated in theBible. He therefore adhered to tradition and created a series ofscenes full of beauty, dignity, and pathos, simple and strong inspite of the bombast prevalent in the literary style of the period.Mehul's music is marked by grandeur, simplicity, lofty sentiment,and consistent severity of manner. The composer's predilection forecclesiastical music, created, no doubt, by the blind organist whotaught him in his childhood and nourished by his studies and laborsat the monastery under the gifted Hauser, found opportunity forexpression in the religious sentiments of the drama, and hisknowledge of plain chant is exhibited in the score "the simplicity,grandeur, and dramatic truth of which will always command theadmiration of impartial musicians," remarks Gustave Choquet. Theenthusiasm of M. Tiersot goes further still, for he says that themusic of "Joseph" is more conspicuous for the qualities of dignityand sonority than that of Handel's oratorio. The German Hanslick,to whom the absence from the action of the "salt of the earth,women" seemed disastrous, nevertheless does not hesitate toinstitute a comparison between "Joseph" and one of Mozart's latestoperas. "In its mild, passionless benevolence the entire role ofJoseph in Mehul's opera," he says, "reminds one strikingly ofMozart's 'Titus,' and not to the advantage of the latter. The opera'Titus' is the work of an incomparably greater genius, but itbelongs to a partly untruthful, wholly modish, tendency (that ofthe old opera seria), while the genre of 'Joseph' is thoroughlynoble, true, and eminently dramatic. 'Joseph' has outlived'Titus.'" [Footnote: "Die Moderne Opera," p. 92.] Carl Maria vonWeber admired Mehul's opera greatly, and within recent years FelixWeingartner has edited a German edition for which he composedrecitatives to take the place of the spoken dialogue of theoriginal book.

There is no story of passion in "Joseph." The love portrayed thereis domestic and filial; its objects are the hero's father,brothers, and country--"Champs eternels, Hebron, douce vallee." Itwas not until our own day that an author with a perverted sensewhich had already found gratification in the stench of mental,moral, and physical decay exhaled by "Salome" and "Elektra" nosedthe piquant, pungent odor of the episode of Potiphar's wife andblew it into the theatre. Joseph's temptress did not tempt even theprurient taste which gave us the Parisian operatic versions of thestories of Phryne, Thais, and Messalina. Richard Strauss's"Josephslegende" stands alone in musical literature. There is,indeed, only one reference in the records of oratorio or opera tothe woman whose grovelling carnality is made the foil of Joseph'svirtue in the story as told in the Book. That reference is found ina singular trilogy, which was obviously written more to disclosethe possibilities of counterpoint than to set forth the story--evenif it does that, which I cannot say; the suggestion comes only froma title. In August, 1852, Pietro Raimondi produced an oratorio inthree parts entitled, respectively, "Putifar," "Giuseppe giusto,"and "Giacobbe," at the Teatro Argentina, in Rome. The music of thethree works was so written that after each had been performedseparately, with individual principal singers, choristers, andorchestras, they were united in a simultaneous performance. Thesuccess of the stupendous experiment in contrapuntal writing was sogreat that the composer fell in a faint amidst the applause of theaudience and died less than three months afterward.

In the course of this study I have mentioned nearly all of theBiblical characters who have been turned into operatic heroes.Nebuchadnezzar appeared on the stage at Hamburg in an opera ofKeiser's in 1704; Ariosti put him through his bovine strides inVienna in 1706. He was put into a ballet by a Portuguese composerand made the butt of a French opera bouffe writer, J. J.Debillement, in 1871. He recurs to my mind now in connection with awitty fling at "Nabucco" made by a French rhymester when Verdi'sopera was produced at Paris in 1845. The noisy brass in theorchestration offended the ears of a critic, and he wrote:

Judas Maccabaeus is one of the few heroes of ancient Israel whohave survived in opera, Rubinstein's "Makkabaer" still having ahold, though not a strong one, on the German stage. The libretto isan adaptation by Mosenthal (author also of Goldmark's "Queen ofSheba") of a drama by Otto Ludwig. In the drama as well as some ofits predecessors some liberties have been taken with the story astold in Maccabees II, chapter 7. The tale of the Israelitishchampion of freedom and his brothers Jonathan and Simon, who losttheir lives in the struggle against the tyranny of the kings ofSyria, is intensely dramatic. For stage purposes the dramatistshave associated the massacre of a mother and her seven sons and themartyrdom of the aged Eleazar, who caused the uprising of the Jews,with the family history of Judas himself. J. W. Franck produced"Die Maccabaische Mutter" in Hamburg in 1679, Ariosti composed "LaMadre dei Maccabei" in 1704, Ignaz von Seyfried brought out "DieMakkabaer, oder Salmonaa" in 1818, and Rubinstein his opera inBerlin on April 17,1875.

The romantic career of Jephtha, a natural son, banished from home,chief of a band of roving marauders, mighty captain and ninth judgeof Israel, might have fitted out many an opera text, irrespectiveof the pathetic story of the sacrifice of his daughter in obedienceto a vow, though this episode springs first to mind when his nameis mentioned, and has been the special subject of the Jephthaoperas. An Italian composer named Pollarolo wrote a "Jefte" forVienna in 1692; other operas dealing with the history are Rolle's"Mehala, die Tochter Jephthas" (1784), Meyerbeer's "Jephtha'sTochter" (Munich, 1813), Generali, "Il voto di Jefte" (1827),Sanpieri, "La Figlia di Jefte" (1872). Luis Cepeda produced aSpanish opera in Madrid in 1845, and a French opera, in five actsand a prologue, by Monteclaire, was prohibited, after oneperformance, by Cardinal de Noailles in 1832.

Judith, the widow of Manasseh, who delivered her native city ofBethulia from the Assyrian Holofernes, lulling him to sleep withher charms and then striking off his drunken head with a falchion,though an Apocryphal personage, is the most popular of Israelitishheroines. The record shows the operas "Judith und Holofernes" byLeopold Kotzeluch (1799), "Giuditta" by S. Levi (1844), AchillePeri (1860), Righi (1871), and Sarri (1875). Naumann wrote a"Judith" in 1858, Doppler another in 1870, and Alexander Seroff aRussian opera under the same title in 1863. Martin Roder, who usedto live in Boston, composed a "Judith," but it was never performed,while George W. Chadwick's "Judith," half cantata, half opera,which might easily be fitted for the stage, has had to rest contentwith a concert performance at a Worcester (Mass.) festival.

The memory of Esther, the queen of Ahasuerus, who saved her peoplefrom massacre, is preserved and her deed celebrated by the Jews intheir gracious festival of Purim. A gorgeous figure for the stage,she has been relegated to the oratorio platform since the end ofthe eighteenth century. Racine's tragedy "Athalie" has called outmusic from Abbe Vogler, Gossec, Boieldieu, Mendelssohn, and others,and a few oratorios, one by Handel, have been based on the story ofthe woman through whom idolatry was introduced into Judah; but Ihave no record of any Athalia opera.

CHAPTER III

RUBINSTEIN'S "GEISTLICHE OPER"

I have a strong belief in the essential excellence of Biblicalsubjects for the purposes of the lyric drama--at least from anhistorical point of view. I can see no reason against but manyreasons in favor of a return to the stage of the patriarchal andheroic figures of the people who are a more potent power in theworld to-day, despite their dispersal and loss of national unity,than they were in the days of their political grandeur and glory.Throughout the greater part of his creative career Anton Rubinsteinwas the champion of a similar idea. Of the twenty works which hewrote for the theatre, including ballets, six were on Biblicalsubjects, and to promote a propaganda which began with thecomposition of "Der Thurmbau zu Babel," in 1870, he not onlyentered the literary field, but made personal appeal for practicalassistance in both the Old World and the New. His, however, was areligious point of view, not the historical or political. It isvery likely that a racial predilection had much to do with hisattitude on the subject, but in his effort to bring religion intothe service of the lyric stage he was no more Jew than Christian:the stories to which he applied his greatest energies were those ofMoses and Christ.

Much against my inclination (for Rubinstein came into myintellectual life under circumstances and conditions which made himthe strongest personal influence in music that I have ever felt), Ihave been compelled to believe that there were other reasonsbesides those which he gave for his championship of Biblical opera.Smaller men than he, since Wagner's death, have written trilogiesand dreamed of theatres and festivals devoted to performances oftheir works. Little wonder if Rubinstein believed that he hadcreated, or could create, a kind of art-work which should takeplace by the side of "Der Ring des Nibelungen," and have itsspecial home like Bayreuth; and it may have been a belief that hisproject would excite the sympathetic zeal of the devout Jew andpious Christian alike, as much as his lack of the capacity forself-criticism, which led him like a will-o'-the-wisp along thepath which led into the bogs of failure and disappointment.

While I was engaged in writing the programme book for the musicfestival given in New York in 1881, at which "The Tower of Babel"was performed in a truly magnificent manner, Dr. Leopold Damrosch,the conductor of the festival, told me that Rubinstein had told himthat the impulse to use Biblical subjects in lyrical dramas hadcome to him while witnessing a ballet based on a Bible story manyyears before in Paris. He said that he had seldom been moved soprofoundly by any spectacle as by this ballet, and it suggested tohim the propriety of treating sacred subjects in a manner worthy ofthem, yet different from the conventional oratorio. The explanationhas not gotten into the books, but is not inconsistent with thegenesis of his Biblical operas, as related by Rubinstein in hisessay on the subject printed by Joseph Lewinsky in his book "Vorden Coulissen," published in 1882 after at least three of theoperas had been written. The composer's defence of his works andhis story of the effort which he made to bring about a realizationof his ideals deserve to be rehearsed in justice to his characteras man and artist, as well as in the interest of the worksthemselves and the subjects, which, I believe, will in the nearfuture occupy the minds of composers again.

"The oratorio," said Rubinstein, "is an art-form which I havealways been disposed to protest against. The best-knownmasterpieces of this form have, not during the study of them butwhen hearing them performed, always left me cold; indeed, oftenpositively pained me. The stiffness of the musical and still moreof the poetical form always seemed to me absolutely incongruouswith the high dramatic feeling of the subject. To see and heargentlemen in dress coats, white cravats, yellow gloves, holdingmusic books before them, or ladies in modern, often extravagant,toilets singing the parts of the grand, imposing figures of the Oldand New Testaments has always disturbed me to such a degree that Icould never attain to pure enjoyment. Involuntarily I felt andthought how much grander, more impressive, vivid, and true would beall that I had experienced in the concert-room if represented onthe stage with costumes, decorations, and full action."

The contention, said Rubinstein in effect, that Biblical subjectsare ill adapted to the stage beeause of their sacred character is atestimony of poverty for the theatre, which should be an agency inthe service of the highest purposes of culture. The people havealways wanted to see stage representations of Bible incidents;witness the mystery plays of the Middle Ages and the Passion Playat Oberammergau to-day. But yielding to a prevalent feeling thatsuch representations are a profanation of sacred history, he hadconceived an appropriate type of art-work which was to be producedin theatres to be specially built for the purpose and by companiesof artists to be specially trained to that end. This art-work wasto be called Sacred Opera (geistliche Oper), to distinguish it fromsecular opera, but its purpose was to be purely artistic and whollyseparate from the interests of the Church. He developed ways andmeans for raising the necessary funds, enlisting artists,overcoming the difficulties presented by the mise en scene and thepolyphonic character of the choral music, and set forth his aim inrespect of the subject-matter of the dramas to be a representationin chronological order of the chief incidents described in the Oldand New Testaments. He would be willing to include in his schemeBiblical operas already existing, if they were not all, with theexception of Mehul's "Joseph," made unfit by their treatment ofsacred matters, especially by their inclusion of love episodeswhich brought them into the domain of secular opera.

For years, while on his concert tours in various countries,Rubinstein labored to put his plan into operation. Wherever hefound a public accustomed to oratorio performances he inquired intothe possibility of establishing his sacred theatre there. He laidthe project before the Grand Duke of Weimar, who told him that itwas feasible only in large cities. The advice sent him to Berlin,where he opened his mind to the Minister of Education, von Muhler.The official had his doubts; sacred operas might do for OldTestament stories, but not for New; moreover, such a theatre shouldbe a private, not a governmental, undertaking. He sought theopinion of Stanley, Dean of Westminster Abbey, who said that hecould only conceive a realization of the idea in the oldtimepopular manner, upon a rude stage at a country fair.

For a space it looked as if the leaders of the Jewish congregationsin Paris would provide funds for the enterprise so far as itconcerned itself with subjects taken from the Old Dispensation; butat the last they backed out, fearing to take the initiative in amatter likely to cause popular clamor. "I even thought of America,"says Rubinstein, "of the daring transatlantic impresarios, withtheir lust of enterprise, who might be inclined to speculate on agigantic scale with my idea. I had indeed almost succeeded, but thelack of artists brought it to pass that the plans, already in aconsiderable degree of forwardness, had to be abandoned. Iconsidered the possibility of forming an association of composersand performing artists to work together to carry on the enterprisematerially, intellectually, and administratively; but the greatdifficulty of enlisting any considerable number of artists for thefurtherance of a new idea in art frightened me back from thispurpose also." In these schemes there are evidences of Rubinstein'swillingness to follow examples set by Handel as well as Wagner. Theformer composed "Judas Maccabaeus" and "Alexander Balus" to pleasethe Jews who had come to his help when he made financial shipwreckwith his opera; the latter created the Richard Wagner Verein to putthe Bayreuth enterprise on its feet.

Of the six sacred operas composed by Rubinstein three may be saidto be practicable for stage representation. They are "DieMakkabaer," "Sulamith" (based on Solomon's Song of Songs) and"Christus." The first has had many performances in Germany; thesecond had a few performances in Hamburg in 1883; the last, firstperformed as an oratorio in Berlin in 1885, was staged in Bremen in1895. It has had, I believe, about fourteen representations in all.As for the other three works, "Der Thurmbau zu Babel" (firstperformance in Konigsberg in 1870), "Das verlorene Paradies"(Dusseldorf, 1875), and "Moses" (still awaiting theatricalrepresentation, I believe), it may be said of them that they arehybrid creations which combine the oratorio and opera styles byutilizing the powers of the oldtime oratorio chorus and the modernorchestra, with the descriptive capacity of both raised to thehighest power, to illustrate an action which is beyond thecapabilities of the ordinary stage machinery. In the character ofthe forms employed in the works there is no startling innovation;we meet the same alternation of chorus, recitative, aria, andensemble that we have known since the oratorio style was perfected.A change, howeer, has come over the spirit of the expression andthe forms have all relaxed some of their rigidity. In the oratoriosof Handel and Haydn there are instances not a few of musicaldelineation in the instrumental as well as the vocal parts; butnothing in them can be thought of, so far at least as the ambitionof the design extends, as a companion piece to the scene in theopera which pictures the destruction of the tower of Babel. This isas far beyond the horizon of the fancy of the old masters as it isbeyond the instrumental forces which they controlled.

"Paradise Lost," the text paraphrased from portions of Milton'sepic, is an oratorio pure and simple. It deals with the creation ofthe world according to the Mosaic (or as Huxley would have said,Miltonic) theory and the medium of expression is an alternation ofrecitatives and choruses, the latter having some dramatic life anda characteristic accompaniment. It is wholly contemplative; thereis nothing like action in it. "The Tower of Babel" has action inthe restricted sense in which it enters into Mendelssohn'soratorios, and scenic effects which would tax the utmost powers ofthe modern stage-machinist who might attempt to carry them out. Amimic tower of Babel is more preposterous than a mimic temple ofDagon; yet, unless Rubinstein's stage directions are to be taken ina Pickwickian sense, we ought to listen to this music while lookingat a stage-setting more colossal than any ever contemplated bydramatist before. We should see a wide stretch of the plain ofShinar; in the foreground a tower so tall as to give color ofplausibility to a speech which prates of an early piercing ofheaven and so large as to provide room for a sleeping multitude onits scaffoldings. Brick kilns, derricks, and all the apparatus andmachinery of building should be on all hands, and from the summitof a mound should grow a giant tree, against whose trunk shouldhang a brazen shield to be used as a signal gong. We should see inthe progress of the opera the bustling activity of the workmen, theroaring flames and rolling smoke of the brick kilns, and witnessthe miraculous spectacle of a man thrown into the fire and walkingthence unharmed. We should see (in dissolving views) the dispersionof the races and behold the unfolding of a rainbow in the sky. And,finally, we should get a glimpse of an open heaven and the Almightyon His throne, and a yawning hell, with Satan and his angelsexercising their dread dominion. Can such scenes be mimickedsuccessfully enough to preserve a serious frame of mind in theobserver? Hardly. Yet the music seems obviously to have beenwritten in the expectation that sight shall aid hearing to quickenthe fancy and emotion and excite the faculties to an appreciationof the work.

"The Tower of Babel" has been performed upon the stage; how Icannot even guess. Knowing, probably, that the work would be givenin concert form oftener than in dramatic, Rubinstein tries tostimulate the fancy of those who must be only listeners by profusestage directions which are printed in the score as well as the bookof words. "Moses" is in the same case. By the time that Rubinsteinhad completed it he evidently realized that its hybrid character aswell as its stupendous scope would stand in the way of performancesof any kind. Before even a portion of its music had been heard inpublic, he wrote in a letter to a friend: "It is too theatrical forthe concert-room and too much like an oratorio for the theatre. Itis, in fact, the perfect type of the sacred opera that I havedreamed of for years. What will come of it I do not know; I do notthink it can be performed entire. As it contains eight distinctparts, one or two may from time to time be given either in aconcert or on the stage."

America was the first country to act on the suggestion of afragmentary performance. The first scene was brought forward in NewYork by Walter Damrosch at a public rehearsal and concert of theSymphony Society (the Oratorio Society assisting) on January 18 and19, 1889. The third scene was performed by the German Liederkranz,under Reinhold L. Herman, on January 27 of the same year. The thirdand fourth scenes were in the scheme of the Cincinnati MusicFestival, Theodore Thomas, conductor, on May 25,1894.

Each of the eight scenes into which the work is divided deals withan episode in the life of Israel's lawgiver. In the first scene wehave the incident of the finding of the child in the bulrushes; inthe second occurs the oppression of the Israelites by the Egyptiantaskmasters, the slaying of one of the overseers by Moses, who,till then regarded as the king's son, now proclaims himself one ofthe oppressed race. The third scene discloses Moses protectingZipporah, daughter of Jethro, a Midianitish priest, from a band ofmarauding Edomites, his acceptance of Jethro's hospitality and thescene of the burning bush and the proclamation of his mission.Scene IV deals with the plagues, those of blood, hail, locusts,frogs, and vermin being delineated in the instrumental introductionto the part, the action beginning while the land is shrouded in the"thick darkness that might be felt." The Egyptians call upon Osiristo dispel the darkness, but are forced at last to appeal to Moses.He demands the liberation of his people as the price to be paid forthe removal of the plague; receiving a promise from Pharaoh, heutters a prayer ending with "Let there be light." The result iscelebrated in a brilliant choral acclamation of the returning sun.The scene has a parallel in Rossini's opera. Pharaoh nowequivocates; he will free the sons of Jacob, but not the women,children, or chattels. Moses threatens punishment in the death ofall of Egypt's first-born, and immediately solo and chorus voicesbewail the new affliction. When the king hears that his son is deadhe gives his consent, and the Israelites depart with an ejaculationof thanks to Jehovah. The passage of the Red Sea, Miriam'scelebration of that miracle, the backsliding of the Israelites andtheir worship of the golden calf, the reception of the Tables ofthe Law, the battle between the Israelites and Modbites on thethreshold of the Promised Land, and the evanishment and apotheosisof Moses are the contents of the remainder of the work.

It is scarcely to be wondered at that the subjects which operacomposers have found adaptable to their uses in the New Testamentare very few compared with those offered by the Old. The bookswritten by the evangelists around the most stupendous tragicalstory of all time set forth little or nothing (outside of thebirth, childhood, teachings, miracles, death, and resurrection ofJesus of Nazareth) which could by any literary ingenuity be turnedinto a stage play except the parables with which Christ enforcedand illustrated His sermons. The sublime language and imagery ofthe Apocalypse have furnished forth the textual body of manyoratorios, but it still transcends the capacity of mortaldramatist.

In the parable of the Prodigal Son there is no personage whosepresentation in dramatic garb could be looked upon as a profanationof the Scriptures. It is this fact, probably, coupled with itsprofoundly beautiful reflection of human nature, which has made ita popular subject with opera writers. There was an Italian"Figliuolo Prodigo" as early as 1704, composed by one Biffi; aFrench melodrama, "L'Enfant Prodigue," by Morange about 1810; aGerman piece of similar character by Joseph Drechsler in Vienna in1820. Pierre Gaveaux, who composed "Leonore, ou l'Amour Conjugal,"which provided Beethoven with his "Fidelio," brought out a comicopera on the subject of the Prodigal Son in 1811, and Berton, whohad also dipped into Old Testament story in an oratorio, entitled"Absalon," illustrated the parable in a ballet. The most recentsettings of the theme are also the most significant: Auber's five-act opera "L'Enfant Prodigue," brought out in Paris in 1850, andPonchielli's "Il Figliuolo Prodigo," in four acts, which had itsfirst representation at La Scala in 1880.

The mediaeval mysteries were frequently interspersed with choralsongs, for which the liturgy of the Church provided material. If wechoose to look upon them as incipient operas or precursors of thatart-form we must yet observe that their monkish authors, willingenough to trick out the story of the Nativity with legendary matterdrawn from the Apocryphal New Testament, which discloses anythingbut a reverential attitude toward the sublime tragedy, neverthelessstood in such awe before the spectacle of Calvary that they deemedit wise to leave its dramatic treatment to the church service inthe Passion Tide. In that service there was something approachingto characterization in the manner of the reading by the threedeacons appointed to deliver, respectively, the narrative, thewords of Christ, and the utterances of the Apostles and people; andit may be--that this and the liturgical solemnities of Holy Weekwere reverently thought sufficient by them and the authors of thefirst sacred operas. Nevertheless, we have Reiser's "Der Blutigeund Sterbende Jesus," performed at Hamburg, and Metastasio's "LaPassione di Gesu Christi," composed first by Caldara, whichprobably was an oratorio.

Earlier than these was Theile's "Die Geburt Christi," performed inHamburg in 1681. The birth of Christ and His childhood (there wasan operatic representation of His presentation in the Temple) weresubjects which appealed more to the writers of the rude plays whichcatered to the popular love for dramatic mummery than did Hiscrucifixion. I am speaking now more specifically of lyric dramas,but it is worthy of note that in the Coventry mysteries, as Honepoints out in the preface to his book, "Ancient MysteriesDescribed," [Footnote: "Ancient Mysteries Described, especially theEnglish Miracle Plays Founded on Apocryphal New Testament Story,"London, 1823.] there are eight plays, or pageants, which deal withthe Nativity as related in the canon and the pseudo-gospels. Inthem much stress was laid upon the suspicions of the VirginMother's chastity, for here was material that was good for rudediversion as well as instruction in righteousness.

That Rubinstein dared to compose a Christ drama must be looked uponas proof of the profound sincerity of his belief in the art-formwhich he fondly hoped he had created; also, perhaps, as evidence ofhis artistic ingenuousness. Only a brave or naive mind could havecalmly contemplated a labor from which great dramatists, men asgreat as Hebbel, shrank back in alarm. After the completion of"Lohengrin" Wagner applied himself to the creation of a tragedywhich he called "Jesus of Nazareth." We know his plan in detail,but he abandoned it after he had offered his sketches to a Frenchpoet as the basis of a lyric drama which he hoped to write forParis. He confesses that he was curious to know what the Frenchmanwould do with a work the stage production of which would "provoke athousand frights." He himself was unwilling to stir up such atempest in Germany; instead, he put his sketches aside and usedsome of their material in his "Parsifal."

Wagner ignored the religious, or, let us say, the ecclesiastical,point of view entirely in "Jesus of Nazareth." His hero was to havebeen, as I have described him elsewhere, [Footnote: "A Book ofOperas," p. 288.] "a human philosopher who preached the savinggrace of Love and sought to redeem his time and people from thedomination of conventional law--the offspring of selfishness. Hisphilosophy was socialism imbued by love." Rubinstein proceededalong the lines of history, or orthodox belief, as unreservedly inhis "Christus" as he had done in his "Moses." The work may be saidto have brought his creative activities to a close, although twocompositions (a set of six pianoforte pieces and an orchestralsuite) appear in his list of numbered works after the sacred opera.He died on November 20, 1894, without having seen a stagerepresentation of it. Nor did he live to see a public theatricalperformance of his "Moses," though he was privileged to witness aprivate performance arranged at the German National Theatre inPrague so that he might form an opinion of its effectiveness. Thepublic has never been permitted to learn anything about theimpression which the work made.

On May 25, 1895, a series of representations of "Christus" wasbegun in Bremen, largely through the instrumentality of ProfessorBulthaupt, a potent and pervasive personage in the old Hanseatictown. He was not only a poet and the author of the book of thisopera and of some of Bruch's works, but also a painter, and hismural decorations in the Bremen Chamber of Commerce are proudlydisplayed by the citizens of the town. It was under the supervisionof the painter-poet that the Bremen representations were given and,unless I am mistaken, he painted the scenery or much of it. One ofthe provisions of the performances was that applause was prohibitedout of reverence for the sacred character of the scenes, which wereas frankly set forth as at Oberammergau. The contents of thetragedy in some scenes and an epilogue briefly outlined are these:The first scene shows the temptation of Christ in the wilderness,where the devil "shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in amoment of time." This disclosure is made by a series of scenes,each opening for a short time in the background--castles, palaces,gardens, mountains of gold, and massive heaps of earth's treasures.In the second scene John the Baptist is seen and heard preaching onthe banks of the Jordan, in whose waters he baptizes Jesus. Thisscene at the Bremen representations was painted from sketches madeby Herr Handrich in Palestine, as was also that of the "Sermon onthe Mount" and "The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes," which formthe subject of the next part. The fourth tableau shows theexpulsion of the money changers from the Temple; the fifth the LastSupper, with the garden of Gethsemane as a background; the sixththe trial and the last the crucifixion. Here, as if harking back tohis "Tower of Babel," Rubinstein brings in pictures of heaven andhell, with angels and devils contemplating the catastrophe. Theproclamation of the Gospel to the Gentiles by St. Paul is thesubject of the epilogue.

CHAPTER IV

"SAMSON ET DALILA"

There are but two musical works based on the story of Samson on thecurrent list to-day, Handel's oratorio and Saint-Saens's opera; butlyric drama was still in its infancy when the subject first tookhold of the fancy of composers and it has held it ever since. Theearliest works were of the kind called sacred operas in the booksand are spoken of as oratorios now, though they were doubtlessperformed with scenery and costumes and with action of a sort. Suchwere "II Sansone" by Giovanni Paola Colonna (Bologna, 1677),"Sansone accecato da Filistri" by Francesco Antonio Uri (Venice,about 1700), "Simson" by Christoph Graupner (Hamburg, 1709),"Simson" by Georg von Pasterwitz (about 1770), "Samson" by J. N.Lefroid Mereaux (Paris, 1774), "Simson" by Johann Heinrich Rolle(about 1790), "Simson" by Franz Tuczek (Vienna, 1804), and "IlSansone" by Francesco Basili (Naples, 1824). Two French operas areassociated with great names and have interesting histories.Voltaire wrote a dramatic text on the subject at the request of LaPopeliniere, the farmer-general, who, as poet, musician, andartist, exercised a tremendous influence in his day. Rameau was inhis service as household clavecinist and set Voltaire's poem. Theauthors looked forward to a production on the stage of the GrandOpera, where at least two Biblical operas, an Old Testament"Jephte" and a New Testament "Enfant prodigue" were current; butRameau had powerful enemies, and the opera was prohibited on theeve of the day on which it was to have been performed. The composerhad to stomach his mortification as best he could; he put some ofhis Hebrew music into the service of his Persian "Zoroastre". Theother French Samson to whom I have re ferred had also to undergo asea-change like unto Rameau's, Rossini's Moses, and Verdi'sNebuchadnezzar. Duprez, who was ambitious to shine as a composer aswell as a singer (he wrote no less than eight operas and also anoratorio, "The Last Judgment"), tried his hand on a Samson operaand succeeded in enlisting the help of Dumas the elder in writingthe libretto. When he was ready to present it at the door of theGrand Opera the Minister of Fine Arts told him that it wasimpracticable, as the stage-setting of the last act alone wouldcost more than 100,000 francs, Duprez then followed the example setwith Rossini's "Mose" in London and changed the book to make ittell a story of the crusades which he called "Zephora".Nevertheless the original form was restored in German and Italiantranslations of the work, and it had concert performances in 1857.To Joachim Raff was denied even this poor comfort. He wrote aGerman "Simson" between 1851 and 1857. The conductor at Darmstadtto whom it was first submitted rejected it on the ground that itwas too difficult for his singers. Raff then gave it to Liszt, withwhom he was sojourning at Weimar, and who had taken pity on his"Konig Alfred"; but the tenor singer at the Weimar opera said themusic was too high for the voice. Long afterward Wagner's friend,Schnorr von Carolsfeld, saw the score in the hands of the composer.The heroic stature of the hero delighted him, and his praise movedRaff to revise the opera; but before this had been done Schnorrdied of the cold contracted while creating the role of Wagner'sTristan at Munich in 1865. Thus mournfully ended the third episode.As late as 1882 Raff spoke of taking the opera in hand again, butthough he may have done so his death found the work unperformed andit has not yet seen the light of the stage-lamps.

Saint-Saens's opera has also passed through many vicissitudes, buthas succumbed to none and is probably possessed of more vigorouslife now than it ever had. It is the recognized operaticmasterpiece of the most resourceful and fecund French musiciansince Berlioz. Saint-Saens began the composition of "Samson etDalila" in 1869. The author of the book, Ferdinand Lemaire, was acousin of the composer. Before the breaking out of the Franco-Prussian War the score was so far on the way to completion that itwas possible to give its second act a private trial. This was done,an incident of the occasion-which afterward introduced one elementof pathos in its history-being the singing of the part of Samson bythe painter Henri Regnault, who soon after lost his life in theservice of his country. A memorial to him and the friendship whichexisted between him and the composer is the "Marche Heroique,"which bears the dead man's name on its title-page. Toward the endof 1872 the opera was finished. For two years the score rested inthe composer's desk. Then the second act was again brought forthfor trial, this time at the country home of Mme. Viardot, atCroissy, the illustrious hostess singing the part of Dalila. In1875 the first act was performed in concert style by M. EdouardColonne in Paris. Liszt interested himself in the opera and securedits acceptance at the Grand Ducal Opera House of Weimar, whereEduard Lassen brought it out on December 2, 1877. Brussels heard itin 1878; but it did not reach one of the theatres of France untilMarch 3, 1890, when Rouen produced it at its Theatre des Arts underthe direction of M. Henri Verdhurt. It took nearly seven monthsmore to reach Paris, where the first representation was at the EdenTheatre on October 31 of the same year. Two years later, after ithad been heard in a number of French and Italian provincialtheatres, it was given at the Academie Nationale de Musique underthe direction of M. Colonne. The part of Dalila was taken by Mme.Deschamps-Jehin, that of Samson by M. Vergnet, that of the HighPriest by M. Lassalle. Eight months before this it had beenperformed as an oratorio by the Oratorio Society of New York. Therewere two performances, on March 25 and 26, 1892, the conductorbeing Mr. Walter Damrosch and the principal singers being FrauMarie Ritter-Goetze, Sebastian Montariol, H. E. Distelhurst, HomerMoore, Emil Fischer, and Purdon Robinson. London had heard the worktwice as an oratorio before it had a stage representation there onApril 26, 1909, but this performance was fourteen years later thanthe first at the Metropolitan Opera House on February 8, 1895. TheNew York performance was scenically inadequate, but the integrityof the record demands that the cast be given here: Samson, SignorTamagno; Dalila, Mme. Mantelli; High Priest, Signor Campanari;Abimelech and An Old Hebrew, M. Plancon; First Philistine, SignorRinaldini; Second Philistme, Signor de Vachetti; conductor, SignorMancinelli. The Metropolitan management did not venture upon arepetition until the opening night of the season 1915-1916, whenits success was such that it became an active factor in therepertory of the establishment; but by that time it had been madefairly familiar to the New York public by performances at theManhattan Opera House under the management of Mr. OscarHammerstein, the first of which took place on November 13, 1908.Signor Campanini conducted and the cast embraced Mme. Gerville-Reache as Dalila, Charles Dalmores as Samson, and M. Dufranne asHigh Priest. The cast at the Metropolitan Opera House's revival ofthe opera on November 15,1915, was as follows: Dalila, Mme.Margarete Matzenauer; Samson, Signor Enrico Caruso; High Priest,Signor Pasquale Amato; Abimelech, Herr Carl Schlegel; An OldHebrew, M. Leon Rothier; A Philistine Messenger, Herr Max Bloch;First Philistine, Pietro Audisio; Second Philistine, VincenzoReschiglian; conductor, Signor Polacco.

It would be a curious inquiry to try to determine the source of thefascination which the story of Manoah's son has exerted uponmankind for centuries. It bears a likeness to the story of the sonof Zeus and Alcmene, and there are few books on mythology which donot draw a parallel between the two heroes. Samson's story issingularly brief. For twenty years he "judged Israel," but theBiblical history which deals with him consists only of an accountof his birth, a recital of the incidents in which he displayed hisprodigious strength and valor, the tale of his amours, and, at theend, the account of his tragical destruction, brought about by theweak element in his character.

Commentators have been perplexed by the tale, irrespective of theadornments which it has received at the hands of the Talmudists. IsSamson a Hebrew form of the conception personified by the GreekHerakles? Is he a mythical creature, born in the human imaginationof primitive nature worship--a variant of the Tyrian sun-godShemesh, whose name his so curiously resembles? [In Hebrew he iscalled Shimshon, and the sun shemesh.] Was he something more than aman of extraordinary physical strength and extraordinary moralweakness, whose patriotic virtues and pathetic end have kept hismemory alive through the ages? Have a hundred generations of men towhom the story of Herakles has appeared to be only a fancifulromance, the product of that imagination heightened by religionwhich led the Greeks to exalt their supreme heroes to the extent ofdeification, persisted in hearing and telling the story of Samsonwith a sympathetic interest which betrays at least a sub-consciousbelief in its verity? Is the story only a parable enforcing a morallesson which is as old as humanity? If so, how got it into thecanonical Book of Judges, which, with all its mythical andlegendary material, seems yet to contain a large substratum ofunquestionable history?

There was nothing of the divine essence in Samson as the Hebrewsconceived him, except that spirit of God with which he was directlyendowed in supreme crises. There is little evidence of hispossession of great wisdom, but strong proof of his moral andreligious laxity. He sinned against the laws of Israel's God whenhe took a Philistine woman, an idolater, to wife; he sinned againstthe moral law when he visited the harlot at Gaza. He was wofullyweak in character when he yielded to the blandishments of Delilahand wrought his own undoing, as well as that of his people. Thedisgraceful slavery into which Herakles fell was not caused by thehero's incontinence or uxoriousness, but a punishment for crime, inthat he had in a fit of madness killed his friend Iphitus. And thethree years which he spent as the slave of Omphale were punctuatedby larger and better deeds than those of Samson in like situation--bursting the new cords with which the men of Judah had bound himand the green withes and new ropes with which Delilah shackled him.The record that Samson "judged Israel in the days of thePhilistines twenty years" leads the ordinary reader to think of himas a sage, judicial personage, whereas it means only that he wasthe political and military leader of his people during that period,lifted to a magisterial position by his strength and prowess inwar. His achievements were muscular, not mental.

Rabbinical legends have magnified his stature and power inprecisely the same manner as the imagination of the poet of the"Lay of the Nibelung" magnified the stature and strength ofSiegfried. His shoulders, says the legend, were sixty ells broad;when the Spirit of God came on him he could step from Zorah toEshtaol although he was lame in both feet; the hairs of his headarose and clashed against one another so that they could be heardfor a like distance; he was so strong that he could uplift twomountains and rub them together like two clods of earth, Heraklestore asunder the mountain which, divided, now forms the Straits ofGibraltar and Gates of Hercules.

The parallel which is frequently drawn between Samson and Heraklescannot be pursued far with advantage to the Hebrew hero. Samsonrent a young lion on the road to Timnath, whither he was going totake his Philistine wife; Herakles, while still a youthfulherdsman, slew the Thespian lion and afterward strangled the Nemeanlion with his hands. Samson carried off the gates of Gaza and borethem to the top of a hill before Hebron; Herakles upheld theheavens while Atlas went to fetch the golden apples of Hesperides.Moreover, the feats of Herakles show a higher intellectual qualitythan those of Samson, all of which, save one, were predominantlyphysical. The exception was the trick of tying 300 foxes by theirtails, two by two, with firebrands between and turning them looseto burn the corn of the Philistines. An ingenious way to spread aconflagration, probably, but primitive, decidedly primitive.Herakles was a scientific engineer of the modern school; he yokedthe rivers Alpheus and Peneus to his service by turning theirwaters through the Augean stables and cleansing them of thedeposits of 3000 oxen for thirty years. Herakles had excellentintellectual training; Rhadamanthus taught him wisdom and virtue,Linus music. We know nothing about the bringing up of Samson savethat "the child grew and the Lord blessed him. And the Lord beganto move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol."Samson made little use of his musical gifts, if he had any, butthat little he made well; Herakles made little use of his musicaltraining, and that little he made ill. He lost his temper andkilled his music master with his lute; Samson, after using animplement which only the black slaves of our South have treated asa musical instrument, to slay a thousand Philistines, jubilated insong:--

With the jawbone of an ass Heaps upon heaps! With the jawbone of an ass Have I slain a thousand men!

The vast fund of human nature laid bare in the story of Samson is,it appears to me, quite sufficient to explain its popularity, andaccount for its origin. The hero's virtues--strength, courage,patriotism--are those which have ever won the hearts of men, andthey present themselves as but the more admirable, as they are madeto appear more natural, by pairing with that amiable weakness,susceptibility to woman's charms.

After all Samson is a true type of the tragic hero, whatever Dr.Chrysander or another may say. He is impelled by Fate into acommission of the follies which bring about the wreck of his body.His marriage with the Philistine woman in Timnath was part of adivine plot, though unpatriotic and seemingly impious. When hisfather said unto him: "Is there never a woman among the daughtersof thy brethren or among all my people that thou goest to take awife of the uncircumcised Philistines?" he did not know that "itwas of the Lord that he sought an occasion against thePhilistines." Out of that wooing and winning grew the first of theencounters which culminated in the destruction of the temple ofDagon, when "the dead which he slew at his death were more thanthey which he slew in his life." So his yielding to the pleadingsof his wife when she betrayed the answer to his riddle and hissuccumbing to the wheedling arts of Delilah when he betrayed thesecret of his strength (acts incompatible with the character of anordinary strong and wise man) were of the type essential to themachinery of the Greek drama.

A word about the mythological interpretation of the characterswhich have been placed in parallel: It may be helpful to anunderstanding of the Hellenic mind to conceive Herakles as amarvellously strong man, first glorified into a national hero andfinally deified. So, too, the theory, that Herakles sinking downupon his couch of fire is but a symbol of the declining sun can beentertained without marring the grandeur of the hero or belittlingNature's phenomenon; but it would obscure our understanding of theHebrew intellect and profane the Hebrew religion to conceive Samsonas anything but the man that the Bible says he was; while to makeof him, as Ignaz Golziher suggests, a symbol of the setting sunwhose curly locks (crines Phoebi) are sheared by Delilah-Night,would bring contumely upon one of the most beautiful and impressiveof Nature's spectacles. Before the days of comparative mythologyscholars were not troubled by such interpretations. Josephusdisposes of the Delilah episode curtly: "As for Samson beingensnared by a woman, that is to be ascribed to human nature, whichis too weak to resist sin."

It is not often that an operatic figure invites to such a study asthat which I have attempted in the case of Samson, and it may bethat the side-wise excursion in which I have indulged invitescriticism of the kind illustrated in the metaphor of using a clubto brain a gnat. But I do not think so. If heroic figures seemsmall on the operatic stage, it is the fault of either the authoror the actor. When genius in a creator is paired with genius in aninterpreter, the hero of an opera is quite as deserving ofanalytical study as the hero of a drama which is spoken. No laborwould be lost in studying the character of Wagner's heroes in orderto illuminate the impersonations of Niemann, Lehmann, or Scaria;nor is Maurel's lago less worthy of investigation than EdwinBooth's.

The character of Delilah presents even more features of interestthan that of the man of whom she was the undoing, and to thosefeatures I purpose to devote some attention presently.

There is no symbolism in Saint-Saens's opera. It is frankly a piecefor the lyric theatre, albeit one in which adherence to a plotsuggested by the Biblical story compelled a paucity of action whichhad to be made good by spectacle and music. The best element in adrama being that which finds expression in action and dialogue, andthese being restricted by the obvious desire of the composers toavoid such extraneous matter as Rossini and others were wont to useto add interest to their Biblical operas (the secondary lovestories, for instance), Saint-Saens could do nothing else thanemploy liberally the splendid factor of choral music which theoratorio form brought to his hand.

We are introduced to that factor without delay. Even before thefirst scene is opened to our eyes we hear the voice of themultitude in prayer. The Israelites, oppressed by their conquerorsand sore stricken at the reflection that their God has desertedthem, lament, accuse, protest, and pray. Before they have beenheard, the poignancy of their woe has been published by theorchestra, which at once takes its place beside the chorus as apeculiarly eloquent expositor of the emotions and passions whichpropel the actors in the drama. That mission and that eloquence itmaintains from the beginning to the final catastrophe, theinstrumental band doing its share toward characterizing theopposing forces, emphasizing the solemn dignity of the Hebrewreligion and contrasting it with the sensuous and sensual frivolityof the worshippers of Dagon. The choral prayer has for itsinstrumental substructure an obstinate syncopated figure,

[figure: an musical score excerpt]

which rises with the agonized cries of the people and sinks withtheir utterances of despair. The device of introducing voicesbefore the disclosure of visible action in an opera is not new, andin this case is both uncalled for and ineffective. Gounod made asomewhat similar effort in his "Romeo et Juliette," where acostumed group of singers presents a prologue, vaguely visiblethrough a gauze curtain. Meyerbeer tried the expedient in "LePardon de Ploermel," and the siciliano in Mascagni's "Cavalleriarusticana" and the prologue in Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci" are othercases in point. Of these only the last can be said to achieve itspurpose in arresting the early attention of the audience. When thecurtain opens we see a public place in Gaza in front of the templeof Dagon. The Israelites are on their knees and in attitudes ofmourning, among them Samson. The voice of lamentation takes a fugalform--

[figure: a musical score excerpt]

as the oppressed people tell of the sufferings which they haveendured:--

The expression rises almost to the intensity of sacrilegiousaccusation as the people recall to God the vow made to them inEgypt, but sinks to accents of awe when they reflect upon theincidents of their former serfdom. Now Samson stands forth. In abroad arioso, half recitative, half cantilena, wholly in theoratorio style when it does not drop into the mannerism ofMeyerbeerian opera, he admonishes his brethren of their need totrust in God, their duty to worship Him, of His promises to aidthem, of the wonders that He had already wrought in their behalf;he bids them to put off their doubts and put on their armor offaith and valor. As he proceeds in his preachment he developssomewhat of the theatrical pose of John of Leyden in "The Prophet."The Israelites mutter gloomily of the departure of their days ofglory, but gradually take warmth from the spirit which has obsessedSamson and pledge themselves to do battle with the foe with himunder the guidance of Jehovah.

Now Abimelech, Satrap of Gaza, appears surrounded by Philistinesoldiers. He rails at the Israelites as slaves, sneers at their Godas impotent and craven, lifts up the horn of Dagon, who, he says,shall pursue Jehovah as a falcon pursues a dove. The speech fillsSamson with a divine anger, which bursts forth in a canticle ofprayer and prophecy. There is a flash as of swords in thescintillant scale passages which rush upward from the eager, angry,pushing figure which mutters and rages among the instruments. TheIsraelites catch fire from Samson's ecstatic ardor and echo thewords in which he summons them to break their chains. Abimelechrushes forward to kill Samson, but the hero wrenches the sword fromthe Philistine's hand and strikes him dead. The satrap's soldierswould come to his aid, but are held in fear by the hero, who is nowarmed. The Israelites rush off to make war on their oppressors. TheHigh Priest comes down from the temple of Dagon and pauses wherethe body of Abimelech lies. Two Philistines tell of the fear whichhad paralyzed them when Samson showed his might. The High Priestrebukes them roundly for their cowardice, but has scarcely utteredhis denunciation before a Messenger enters to tell him that Samsonand his Israelitish soldiers have overrun and ravaged the country.Curses and vows of vengeance against Israel, her hero, and her Godfrom the mouth of Dagon's servant. One of his imprecations isdestined to be fulfilled:--

Revolutions run a rapid course in operatic Palestine. Theinsurrection is but begun with the slaying of Abimelech, yet as thePhilistines, bearing away his body, leave the scene, it is only tomake room for the Israelites, chanting of their victory. We expecta sonorous hymn of triumph, but the people of God have beenchastened and awed by their quick deliverance, and their paean isin the solemn tone of temple psalmody, the first striking bit oflocal color which the composer has introduced into his score--areticence on his part of which it may be said that it is all themore remarkable from the fact that local color is here completelyjustified:--

[figure: a musical score excerpt, sung to the words "Praise, yeJehovah! Tell all the wondrous story! Psalms of praise loudlyswell!]

"Hymne de joie, hymne de deliverance Montez vers l'Eternel!"

It is a fine piece of dramatic characterization; which is followedby one whose serene beauty is heightened by contrast. Dalila and acompany of singing and dancing Philistine women come in bearinggarlands of flowers. Not only Samson's senses, our own as well, areravished by the delightful music:--